You most likely know all about A Vampyre Story, the game developed by many people from the classic LucasArts era, and designed by Bill "Curse of Monkey Island artist" Tiller -- and you will probably know how eagerly anticipated it is for many people.

If you've played the game, please leave a comment on the site or the forums, and let people know what your impressions were.

If you are like me and tend to visit the Double Fine Action News page several times a day in the hopes that there's something new to read - and hopefully that something new to read is about Brütal Legend - then you know that, well, we don't always get stuff about Brütal Legend. Sometimes we get stuff about rats and weevils (man, did I ever stop eating Kashi after that weevil), and there's nothing wrong with that, except that Weevils are to Brütal Legend what making love to your hand is to sex with a model. We occasionally need the Legend.

You’d think that one day they’d learn, but no – The SCUMM Bar is at it again. It would seem that the same site that lied about shutting down back in 2004 just to get Tim Schafer to write something on their forum feels it didn’t rack up quite enough mortal sins upon its soul. In its latest act of supreme class, the inactive Monkey Island fansite is now extorting money from its oft-manipulated readers, insinuating that it will re-open its doors after three years once sufficient Paypal donations are made.

Rogue Leaders is a kind of magic book, like in Harry Potter. If you open it up then you see the face of a tortured artist screaming at you from out the hellish past. It also has pretty pictures and quotes from Tim Schafer.

No word yet on the North American release date, but evidently Amazon.de now ships to North America, which may also be the only way for US folks to get their hands on that extras-filled AVS special edition.

Adventure-Treff has posted this huge interview with Tiller about Autumn Moon, AVS, and his LEC past. Did you know that it was George Lucas who insisted on The Dig not being cancelled despite the repeatedly failed development efforts?

Then there's this article at GameSetWatch, which takes an analytical look at Grim Fandango, a game about which there never seems to be a deficit of things to praise.

There's really only one way that your life will have been worth anything when you die, and that's if you send me your reader opinion on Full Throttle for our next (next meaning, the one after the one we still didn't publish) Secret History article. Furthermore, we are as always open to reader-submitted sections for the article if there's something particular about the game that you're obsessed with and have to inform the world about, provided you give us a heads up.

Subscribers to Telltale Games' newsletter may have noticed an invitation for those in the Bay Area to attend a playtesting session. It's coming up very soon and is for the first Wallace & Gromit's Grand Adventures episode.

Generally speaking, playtesting happens when games are fairly near completion, so we can hold out a little hope for some Wallace & Gromit goodness this side of Christmas. Maybe.

Available for PC and WiiWare today is the fourth episode of Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People: "Dangeresque 3: The Criminal Projective." Exchange your Wii points, claim your episode as part of your season pass, or do whatever it is you have to do to start playing through Strong Bad's latest cinematic masterpiece.

Telltale is also offering until Wednesday a free shipping deal for orders placed at their store with the condition that one the items you purchase is a downloadable game. More details here.

According to the German Amazon page for Mata Hari it seems like the game is being released on the 21st. this month. The official site has also been updated with info about the seductive gameplay mode which you'll use to whore yourself out to the richer gentlemen (and women) of the Belle Époque.

The Tingler apparently found that a demo for A Vampyre Story is available for download right now! I haven't had a chance to play it yet so all I know is that it features both English and German speech. So just get playing!

I might as well take this time to catch up on some general AVS news, all previously supplied by our good friends (and better lovers) at The Pumpkin Post. There's a new gameplay video from the game available from Adventure-Treff. It features a German narrator but the actual in-game voices are in English.

Then there's some confirmation about the game's release. The game (which, as far as I know, is available in Germany right now) will hit the UK and France on November 24, and the US "soon after." Additionally, the game will be available in about a week or so from digital outlets GamersGate, GameTap, and Metaboli.

In case you're in any way interested, LucasArts have released the first Character Pack for Star Wars: The Force Unleashed on 360 and PS3.

The pack consists of a few new Starkiller outfits, some classic characters like Obi-Wan, Luke and Anakin, a couple of random Jedi (Kit "Fish" Fisto and Ki-Adi "Why is my head shaped like a nob" Mundi), and a couple of surprises for fans. These take the form of a Republic Commando and the brilliantly Scottish Darth Sion from Knights of the Old Republic 2.

Been hankering for something - anything - related to Ron Gilbert's upcoming DeathSpank? Well, that's exactly what you get today. On his blog, Ron has released DeathSpank desktop wallpaper in a variety of resolutions, including a drug-free 320x200 EGA version for ATMachine. The game's as good as shipped!

Written in 1996, this mostly-complete document details the cut-scenes and puzzles in the game. What makes this particularly fascinating is that it's packed with concept art and descriptions of scenes/puzzles that were cut from the game, giving us an insight into a slightly different Grim Fandango.

Any Grim Fandango fan is sure to want to put this aside for 72 pages of superb toilet reading, so be sure to grab the document at once.

The penultimate episode of Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People, titled "Dangeresque 3" will be available for PC on Telltale's website and on the Wii through WiiWare November 17th, precisely six days from today.

You can read the plot synopsis as well as check out some screenshots, the trailer, and gameplay footage on Telltale's mini-page for the episode. Between this and A Vampyre Story (still only confirmed on the 17th for Germany, I should concede), next Monday looks to be a good day to be an adventure gamer.

Shipping today are Star Wars The Clone Wars: Lightsaber Duels and Star Wars The Clone Wars: Jedi Alliance for the Wii and DS respectively (and exclusively). Jedi Alliance is the first game to be developed by LucasFilm's Singapore studio, which produced the Clone Wars animated series itself.

Dude, you're not waiting for the Sam & Max Hit the Road Secret History article - it's waiting on you. If you haven't already, please send us your reader opinion for inclusion in the article, which will be up before you can say "Bruno the Bigfoot" without a larynx.
Comments: 2
Twitter this

Much about Insecticide's production, including things that didn't make it into the game, are revealed, as are some anecdotes about the old days at LucasArts. Release dates for the Episode 2 are not given, but the project is certainly talked about as though its eventual release is certain. Interestingly, Levine also makes repeated reference to his desire for an Insecticide sequel, the reality of such a scenario not being discussed. An excerpt:

I personally think there are millions of people out there who love video games, but for the most part stopped playing them. They may try out a GTA or Half-Life when it comes out – playing the biggest the medium has to offer, but for the most part, they have less time in their lives, and most games bore them and are repetitive. Humans crave new things. We love new music, new idea in films, art, anything. But games have gotten SO stagnant. We wanted to mix this up. We learned a lot. And yes, we have many ideas how to keep doing this as we move forward. We just need the budgets and time to be able to achieve these things.

Anyway, the interview is nice and lengthy and contains a lot of great stuff, so read it, and pray that the game's PC version gets its remainder out the door sooner rather than later.

You already know about the special edition of A Vampyre Story (still only confirmed for Germany) and were given a guesstimate of its contents, but a news post by Crimson Cow on the official site for the game gives the official list, while confirming the game's release on the 17th for Germany. Check out the complete list at The Pumpkin Post, but the main addition is the inclusion of a soundtrack disc, which is awesome. For Germany.

Well that's what I think now, and I hope you will too after this post.

Speaking with investors, Activision Blizzard head Bobby "I hate games" Kotick explained why so many of Sierra's games (such as Brutal Legend) got dropped by the company.

Eurogamer has done a good job of summing this speech up, but we only really need the truth straight from the talking horse's mouth:

"With respect to the franchises that don't have the potential to be exploited every year across every platform with clear sequel potential that can meet our objectives of over time becoming USD 100 million plus franchises, that's a strategy that has worked very well for us."

Still doesn't explain why you're now holding up Brutal Legend from getting picked up by other publishers, though.

For those of you who don't know (and you were supposed to know, but I was held back because of ugly school deadlines): two days ago, on November 2nd (update: apparently it's October 29th), 2008, was the tenth anniversary of the brilliant landmark game, Grim Fandango. Ten years! Tim Schafer's thoughts here.

I wasn't old enough to play Fandango in 1998, and I only played it last year. It was beautiful. I'll never, ever forget a moment at the end of the game - and spoiler coming-up here - where Manny runs once again into Chepito, the traveller following the "moon" underwater - as he "[evens] out my life in this world before I go on to the next," and then walks into the next world, singing that song. As Manny, I tried to follow him. And Manny stopped.

He stopped, looked at the tunnel to the next world and said that he wouldn't, not without all the people he'd promised to save.

And in a surge of emotion I realised that my life's just that much better because of it.

Chris Remo of Idle ThumbsShacknews Gamasutra sat down with Mike Stemmle of LucasArtsPerpetual Telltale to discuss Stemmle's past present and future, with a strong prejudice toward the topic of Sam & Max. You'll want to be reading it now.